Stang alum relishes role as walk-on guard for Providence College

During his playing days at Bishop Stang, Ted Bancroft had big basketball dreams.

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By BILL ABRAMSON

southcoasttoday.com

By BILL ABRAMSON

Posted Dec. 16, 2012 at 12:01 AM

By BILL ABRAMSON
Posted Dec. 16, 2012 at 12:01 AM

» Social News

During his playing days at Bishop Stang, Ted Bancroft had big basketball dreams.

Now, he's living his dream.

"As a kid, you dream about playing (big-time) basketball and hope you can do it," Bancroft said during his exam break at Providence College this week. "Then I realize, wow, I'm actually doing it. I'm one of those kids I dreamed about being as a child.

"Sometimes, I've really got to pinch myself. I'll be watching the game and forget I'm a player until the coach comes over. It's exciting to play at The Dunk. The last game, there were 9,400 people watching us play."

Bancroft is a junior at PC and almost 6-6. He has taken the rare route of being a walk-on at a Div. 1 school and actually getting a chance to play.

"When I got to school, my co-captain at Stang, Harry Flynn, came to PC with me," Bancroft said. "He knew I would want to play for the team and he would go to the gym with me and we played for hours.

Bancroft has come a long way since meeting Flynn as a Stang freshman.

"Harry lived in New Jersey and his parents were moving to Westport," Bancroft said. "He spent a day at (Bishop Stang) and I was showing him around. He was 6-4 and I was a 5-7 freshman, and, by time we were seniors, we were both 6-4. Now, I'm 6-5½."

Bancroft was invited to the walk-on trials in which anyone, if selected, would be used as a practice player for the team, which, at this level, is made up of scholarship players.

"I played really well that day," he recalled. "I dunked on a kid and hit three threes. If I wasn't going to make the team after that day, I'd never do it. They said they didn't know if they'd take any walk-ons. After the first (try-out) game, the coaches said I could dress and there might be a scholarship for me. Then, Keno Davis got fired and Ed Cooley came in."

Coach Cooley told the story at the sports banquet of how close Bancroft came to being dropped from the team after just one practice under the new coach.

"I had knee surgery and on the first day of practice, the knee popped out again," Bancroft said. "Coach Cooley thought of kicking me off the team, but he liked my personality, that I was a good leader and did the right things. By the end of the season, I started playing in games and won the Coaches Award."

That first practice was an eye-opener for the freshman walk-on.

"I was guarding MarShon Brooks and he made me fall down," Bancroft recalled with a laugh. "That's when I realized, these kids play on a different level. I was recruited by Div. 2 and Div. 3 schools, but that's not the Big East. I'm playing against future NBA players every day."

Brooks was drafted by the Celtics in the first round as the 25th pick in 2011 and was traded to the New Jersey, now Brooklyn, Nets for the 27th pick and a 2014 second round pick. He's currently playing with the Nets.

Coming into this season, Cooley recruited three transfer players, who have to sit out a year. He told Bancroft there would be only seven or eight players back and he'd probably play about 10 minutes a game. In the first game, senior guard Vincent Council got hurt and PC was down to six scholarship guys and Bancroft.

The Marion resident had played 37 minutes over two years, quite a difference from how this season began.

"Ted played 45 minutes in the Puerto Rico Challenge against Penn State," Ted's dad, also Ted Bancroft, said. "He played all 40 minutes of regulation and five minutes of overtime in a 2-point loss. That might be an NCAA record for a walk-on to play 45 minutes in a Div. 1 basketball game."

Bancroft has made his mark, using his height, along with 6-5 freshman guard Josh Fortune, to hold opponents to 21 percent shooting from 3-point range.

"If you ask anyone in high school, they'd say I had priorities on the offensive side of floor," Bancroft said. "I owe Coach (Joe) Balestracci a lot. The reason I'm playing is what I know about the game, where to be on defense and know the right thing to do. I (didn't focus my game on) defense in high school, but I learned a lot. Coach, thank you. You taught me everything I needed to know for the next level. Without him, I wouldn't be where I am today."

Balestracci remembers his former captain and scorer fondly.

"Teddy was the kind of player who was getting better and better through his high school career," Balestracci said. "For him to do what he's doing is great. He's creating memories. He was always the kind of kid with so much confidence in himself. Nothing surprises me with Teddy."

There was little doubt that young Ted would wind up at Providence College. His mom's whole family went there and Patty (Cottam) Bancroft was a varsity lacrosse player for the Friars. Her great uncle, Charles Reynolds, pitched the longest game in PC history, all 20 innings against Brown on June 7, 1924, which PC won, 1-0. Two years later, Reynolds pitched all 18 innings against Brown in a game PC won, 6-5.

"My father (Earl Cottam) played freshman basketball and all my siblings and I went there," Mrs. Bancroft pointed out. "Our spouses and all my cousins went there, too. They all had choices and, for different reasons, they all ended up there."

Ted followed his sisters, Hilary and Caroline, to PC, but younger brother Andrew chose to go down the road to Bryant.

"He comes to all the games and it's like he goes to Providence," Ted said. "He just takes classes at Bryant."

Closing in on 6-6 and bulking up to 210 pounds from his 180 in high school, Bancroft knows he needed the extra muscle in the Big East.

"You're not going against your high school buddies, you're playing against future NBA all-stars," Bancroft said. "Sometimes, I wonder how I did it. After a while, you improve and the games slow down. I never regret a day of it."

The Friars hit the break with a 7-2 record with three more games until the Big East season begins the first week in January.

"The first Big East game is Jan. 3 at Louisville, the No. 3 team in the country," he said. "Then we play Syracuse, the No. 2 team, all within a week. It's just another day at the office."